And by "great moments", I mean "truly horrible, soul-scarring moments".

(Warning: this is an old buddy of mine from growing up who somehow went completely off the human decency track sometime during the five years he spent in West Lafayette training to become an engineer, then an aviation manager, then some odd, unemployable hybrid of undeclared socio-managing assistant golf pro with a dab of kinesiologist thrown in for good measure. The retelling of these stories represents in no way an endorsement of this sort of behavior. Some of it is abhorrant but still strangely captivating in a "Faces of Death" sort of way. Hell, I didn't even know what a "blumpkin" was before I lived with him.)

* Purdue roommate -- let's call him "Petey" for simplicity's sake -- hooks up with a girl at her apartment and spends the night. In the morning, her overprotective father -- who is very large and very Italian -- bursts into the apartment to visit and use his daughter's computer, which also happens to be in her bedroom. There is no back exit. In order to carry out the ruse and avoid physical harm, Petey stows away under his conquest's bed for the next four hours, completely naked and trapped with the girl's Shih-tzu with the girl's father sitting three feet away from him for the duration. He only escapes, still nude and clothes in hand, when the father has returned to the living room and fallen into a light sleep sitting up on the couch.

* Petey meets a girl over the internet (representing a majority of his dating activity at the time) and after wining and dining her over the course of the next week-plus, decides to tap out when she starts mailing hand-written letters to him at our apartment addressed in his full (first middle last) name on a twice-daily basis. Never one for the formal breakup, Petey resorts to tried-and-true "duck and cover" strategy, wherein he simply neglects to return all calls, e-mails, etc, until the correspondence ceases. Indeed, almost childlike in its simplicity.

In any case, plans had been made for them to rendez-vous at a basketball game the following week. Fearing that the young lass was not one to take "no comment" for an answer, Petey calls me at work one afternoon and mentions, oh by the way, that some crazy bitch may be sitting outside our apartment when I get home later that day, waiting to meet up with him for their planned date. I'm told to let her know that he went to Chicago unexpectedly for work if she asks. When she's not waiting outside the door once I get home, I forget about the whole thing. Until 11:30 PM that evening, when she calls asking for Petey and sounding downright disoriented. I give her the prescribed line and ask if she's alright.

"Actually," she says, "We were supposed to meet to go to a basketball game today, and I drove to Cincinnati [note: from where she lived in Chilli-frickin-cothe, some two hours away] and waited at his apartment but he didn't show up. So I was driving back home and upset and not thinking clearly, and I got into a car accident".

Holy goddam shit.

"Holy goddam shit. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Well...actually...my neck is pretty sore..."

Christ.

"...and I can't bend my left arm all the way..."

Good grief.

"...and, well, the car's basically undriveable..."

She said she'd gotten treatment, and I wished her well. Petey rolls home a half-hour later, and I quickly tell him, "You're not going to believe this."

"Yeah, I know. Heard she got into an accident or something."

"Oh. Did you talk to her?"

"Nah, I heard her message." Shrugs. "I'll call her tomorrow."

This guy was unbelievable, the living personification of every crude stereotype of the male form. Fun guy but absolute hell on women. I can still hardly believe my luck that I escaped living there without getting shot by some woman or her whacked-out boyfriend/husband/whatever.